Getting the Most out of the Fridge and Freezer

Even though we are kind enough to provide food and shelter for our household appliances, sometimes they can be greedy and unappreciative, draining precious energy as quickly as taking money out of our wallets. While there are several appliances that act as energy hogs, it's no secret that the refrigerator and freezer are two of the bigger offenders.

The Simple Dollar recently posted an article that gives 7 Ways to Maximize the Value of Your Refrigerator and Freezer. Apparently, there are a few really easy things that everyone can do to start saving money and energy almost immediately. For instance, did you know that moving the fridge away from the wall by just a couple of inches can make it up to 40% more efficient? Likewise, filling your freezer with jugs of frozen water reduces the amount of time that it has to run.

Following some of these steps can lead to some quick savings. To read more about maximizing the value of the fridge and freezer, visit The Simple Dollar.

Downloaded Music Radically Greener Than CDs

Music fans looking for the greenest way to get their tunes now have an answer. The New York Times’ Green Inc. recently ran a piece focusing on the results of a study aimed at calculating the emissions impact of buying music in digital form, instead of CDs.

It should come as no surprise that CDs, with the manufacturing and transportation needed to get them to your house, end up with a much larger carbon footprint than purely digital music. In fact, when someone downloads an album instead of going to a store and buying the CD, they can cut carbon emissions related to acquiring that album by about 80 percent.

Thanks to this study, we now know for sure that downloading an album is a much more environmentally-friendly way of getting music than old-school CDs. But, what I really want to know is which is greener: an iPod or a CD player?

AT&T; Executives Rappel Down High-Rise

As part of their support of the Xtreme Descent 2009 fundraiser for a local Boy Scout council, AT&T executives rappelled down the tallest building in Manchester, NH this past weekend.More than 80 participants took the 24-story plunge, each donating a minimum of $1000 for the scouts. That works out to about $41 per floor.

Before each participant stepped off of the building, AT&T offered them a choice of three “lifelines”: a phone call, a text message or an e-mail. Company representatives also filmed mobile video of everyone’s descent to share with friends and family.

This is a really cool way to raise money for a worthy cause, and with more than 80 people raising $1000 or more each, it seems to have been a major success.

Back-to-School Shopping Tips

It’s that time of year again, when children everywhere start counting down their last days of freedom and parents get ready to outfit them for another year of school. Here are some quick tips to save money this year:

• Bring a list – It may sound obvious, but make sure you bring along a list of all of the required school supplies and all of the clothing your kids need.
• Stick to the list – Back-to-school-shopping is already expensive enough, don’t make it more painful with impulse items.
• Leave the kids at home – What your children don’t know they’re missing won’t hurt them.
• Shop tax-free – Check to see if your state has a tax-free weekend, if it does you can save a bundle on supplies, clothes and expensive items like laptops.
• Don’t skimp on the important things – Going cheap on bigger-ticket items may be tempting, but there’s no point in buying a inexpensive backpack that you’re going to have to replace in a month.
• Don’t shop at just one store – It may be handy to get everything on your list from calculators to clothing under one roof, but you might be missing out on some great deals, so shop around.
• Check what you already have – You may be surprised at how many things are lurking in your kid’s desks and old backpacks.
• Shop late – Stores mark down lots of school supplies as soon as school starts, so see if you can wait it out or just stop in after your regular shopping to get enough refills for the year at a deep discount.

How to Slay Your Energy Vampire

Is your home infested with energy vampires? You know, those pesky plugged in appliances that suck energy even though they are turned off. Well if your answer is yes, then I've got a solution that will banish those energy draining vampires for good and lower your energy usage.

It's as easy as unplugging unused appliances and getting some up-to-date power strips. Doing those two simple things can save you money on your monthly electric bill.

Now I know some of you already use power strips, and that's great, but do you have the fancy new smart power strips that are out on the market? Some of these new power strips will automatically cut power to everything you have plugged into it when you turn off one designated item. Another power strip has a motion sensor that will turn itself on when you walk by.

Sure these new power strips will cost a little more but in the long run they will cut your energy usage and lower your energy bill. To read more about how you can slay your energy vampire, visit EnergyCircle.

Coffee Shops Getting Tired of Wi-Fi Squatters

Uh oh. This is troubling news for anyone out there that is used to finding the nearest Starbucks and sitting down to browse the Web on a laptop. While free public Wi-Fi is fun to use and often shopped as a selling point among many businesses, it seems that coffee shops in particular are getting a little bothered by the growing number of Wi-Fi squatters out there.

The Wall Street Journal has posted an interesting read about this trend. Over the last several years, the amount of people with Wi-Fi enabled devices has been steadily on the rise, as well as the number of businesses that offer wireless access points to its customers. However, this has also attributed to non-paying customers simply loitering and crashing the property of many local owners, without even buying anything.

Even though I for one love to partake in some free Wi-Fi whenever I can get my virtual hands on it, I do have to say that I understand why a shop owner would be upset about non-paying customers just hanging around all day. What are your thoughts about coffee shops clamping down on Wi-Fi squatters? To read more, visit the Wall Street Journal.

New Ways to Make Your Cup of Coffee a Little Greener

If you ever find yourself pondering your carbon footprint over your morning cup of joe, these clever new coffee-based inventions might just be for you.

Jeon Hwan Ju’s radical new printer concept named RITI would allow you to save the Earth and your wallet at the same time. Instead of traditional ink, RITI uses spent coffee or tea grounds to slash printing costs and waste. Taking eco-friendliness one step further, the printer uses human power to move the cartridge over the paper, meaning you won’t have to plug it into an outlet. While RITI is still on the drawing board at this point, if and when it comes to market people will finally have an alternative to costly and wasteful ink cartridges, not to mention delicious-smelling documents.

If you’re willing to plan out your coffee needs 12 to 24 hours in advance, the Hourglass Coffee Machine can help you cut down on both counter-space and electricity costs. Using no electricity whatsoever, the gadget brews up an environmentally-friendly coffee concentration that can be stored in the fridge for weeks and mixed with hot water when needed. As a bonus, the manufacturer claims the resulting brew tastes better than traditional coffee since the process both reduces acid content and retains essential oils lost in heating.

As for how to transport your coffee, Australian-based KeepCup has a great alternative to the endless flow of disposable take-out coffee cups. Sure, reusable cups are nothing new, but what sets the KeepCup apart is its shape. Available in three barista-standard sizes, the KeepCup is able to fit under the nozzle of an espresso machine, meaning it doesn’t have to be filled via a wasteful paper cup like its taller competition. Other green features include a recyclable and virtually indestructible Polypropylene #5 construction, low embodied energy, and a silicone band that allows owners to permanently brand their cup with their coffee preferences.

Your Next Cell Phone May Be Made of Corn

Believe it or not, Sprint and Samsung announced on Thursday that they are planning to roll out a cell phone made with corn as an ingredient. Called the Reclaim, the phone will cost $50.00 after rebates and be one of the greenest phones on the market.

Corn-based bioplastic will make up 40 percent of the phone’s casing, helping to cut down on both greenhouse emissions and hazardous waste. Bioplastics currently make up only about five percent of the plastic market, but that number should grow as more people become concerned about their carbon footprint and as oil prices continue to rise.

It’s not just the phone itself that’s eco-friendly, though. Packaging will be made from 70 percent recycled material and soy-based ink, the traditional paper manual will be swapped for a virtual version and the phone’s charger will be about 12 times more efficient than normal chargers. Also, Sprint will donate $2.00 to The Nature Conservancy’s Adopt an Acre program for every Reclaim sold.

You can pick up the Reclaim from Sprint starting August 16th in either “Earth Green” or “Ocean Blue.”

Cable Industry: Triple Play Good for Consumers!

According to a recent study commissioned by the National Cable & Television Association, cable’s decade-plus investments in modern digital networks, which they say allows consumers to choose among a wide variety of products and bundled services – including digital high-definition video, high-speed data, and digital voice – provides about $35 billion in annual consumer benefits.

"Consumers as a whole have unequivocally benefited from the transformation of the cable industry over the past ten years and its investment and entry into voice and high-speed data markets,” the report states. “The benefits can be attributed to the cable industry’s massive investments in deployment of advanced communications infrastructure, which enables provision of new digital video, data, and voice services.  Consumers have voted with their feet by subscribing to these new services in ever-increasing numbers.” 

The study, prepared by Microeconomic Consulting & Research Associates, Inc. (MiCRA), found that about 60 percent of cable customers subscribe to broadband Internet service, 26 percent subscribe to digital voice service, and the penetration of each service continues to grow steadily.  The triple-play bundle of digital video, broadband, and digital voice service continues to attract a larger share of cable customers, which provides the greatest opportunity for consumer savings. 

The researches used bundled service figures from the top three cable operators, Comcast, Time Warner and Cox. According to those three, 23% chose a triple play of cable, Internet and phone, in 2008, up from around 10% in 2007.

For more information, download the incredibly detailed PDF of the whole survey. Or just find a triple play bundle available in your area. 

Sustainability: The Final Frontier

Like you, businesses and government agencies are looking to cut energy costs. To help curb their energy appetite, NASA is planning on building the most energy efficient building in the entire federal government. The building, to be named Sustainability Base, should essentially power itself and use just 10 percent of the water that similar sized buildings use.

To hit those targets, plans call for eco-friendly choices like solar panels, geothermal wells, fuel cells, and water recycling. Managing everything will be a control system based on the computers that control NASA uses to control its spacecrafts. The system can take into account the weather, how many people are in the building and other factors to dial in the perfect amount of heating and cooling, which helps save big on energy consumption.

While it’s unlikely that you will have the opportunity (or funds) to build your own multi-million dollar green building from scratch, some of the advanced systems found in Tranquility Base (or smaller scale versions of them) should start showing up in new houses in the near future, so keep an eye out.